1. Field of Disclosed Subject Matter
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for implementing an automated bidding process in which a preliminary system-generated diagnosis (pre-diagnosis) of a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system difficulty may be generated and forwarded to a plurality of available or pre-selected HVAC repair facilities or contractors for soliciting and receiving competitive bidding for repair services from those HVAC repair facilities or contractors.
2. Related Art
Environmental conditions in modern commercial and residential buildings are typically controlled to support occupant comfort, or to otherwise support provision of some specialized localized environment. Such specialized purposes can include cold rooms for refrigeration of various products, hot houses for indoor crop production, vacuum systems for maintenance of clean rooms, and/or critical control of the temperatures and/or humidity to support cooling of electronics components in, for example, large data centers. Environmental condition control is undertaken with many different and varying forms of electro-mechanical systems typically comprised of the following major components: compressor, condenser and condenser fan, closed piping loop with refrigerant and an air handling motor and fan (hereinafter referred to as an HVAC system). Such HVAC systems are known to typically reduce temperature and humidity within the involved buildings when outside air temperature and humidity are higher than the temperature and humidity conditions to be maintained within the buildings. Conversely, the HVAC systems are also known to typically increase temperature, while controlling humidity, within the involved buildings when outside air temperatures are lower than the temperature conditions to be maintained within the buildings. Except in the case of the certain specialized environmental conditions mentioned briefly above, occupant comfort is generally the benchmark for adjustment of the environmental conditions within a building, or in at least particular portions of the building. Depending on a size and purpose of the building overall, the environmental conditions may be adjusted to be consistent throughout the entire building, or the environmental conditions may be otherwise individually adjusted within one or more segregated portions of the building.
HVAC systems are often appropriately sized, or particularized, to provide appropriate environmental condition control within a building based on a number of factors regarding the building. These factors may include determining a specific size of a space within a building, or of the building overall, to be heated/cooled, as well as assessing typical outdoor environmental conditions in a location or region in which the building is located (often accounting for reasonable excursions beyond those typical conditions as may suit the owners, operators and/or occupants of the building). Certain assumptions and presumptions regarding (1) HVAC system operations and operating efficiency and (2) environmental integrity of the building also factor into decisions regarding a correct size of an HVAC system to be used for environmental condition control in the building.
The HVAC system, as configured and installed according to the above considerations, then operates under a variety of outdoor environmental conditions to attempt to correctly maintain the desired environmental conditions within the building. Rarely, however, will a particularly-configured HVAC system, as installed in or on a building, operate at peak efficiency in relevant external environmental conditions, for a variety of reasons, including among others system degradation, improper installation, improper operation, electrical/mechanical failure, failure of the control system, or system design. As such, there may typically arise a need or desire to make some modification to the HVAC equipment or its controls to improve the comfort of the building and its occupants.
HVAC systems, particularly those supporting environmental control in large commercial buildings, which, in turn, support many and widely varied businesses, can be very complex in their configurations. These HVAC systems often consist of multiple modularized components, each module, in turn, comprising significant numbers of moving parts. Mechanical system components and moving parts are often subjected to wear during operation that may cause them to operate with decreasing efficiency over time as parts wear and may ultimately wear out. Separately, mechanical system components may randomly fail in operation at any time. In some HVAC systems, certain of the modules also include one or more pressurized closed-loop sub-systems that generally contain some form of working fluid or “refrigerant.” A phase of the working fluid is changed from a liquid to a gas and back to a liquid repeatedly to effect the transfer of heat from the inside of the building to the outside of the building. These coolant loops are appropriately sized according to the above, and related, factors. Pressurized sub-systems may develop leaks that can result in reduction of the heat transfer fluid within the pressurized sub-systems causing them to operate less efficiently as fluid levels are depleted to less than optimum. Over-supply, or under-supply, of working fluid, can cause the HVAC system to operate less efficiently. A loss in working fluid from those sub-systems may lead to premature failure of the overall HVAC system, or of specified components within the HVAC system as well. Deterioration in conditions in either of these scenarios may occur without knowledge of the owners, operators or occupants of the building being serviced by the HVAC system prior to ultimate system failure. The insidious nature of undetected degradations in HVAC system performance may lead to increasing inefficiencies adversely affecting system output causing even more random adjustments to the operation of the system thereby compounding the inefficiencies.
These above-described inefficiencies can be costly when “forcing” a building's HVAC system to operate to properly control the environmental conditions while operating in a degraded mechanical condition.